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In May, the U.S. Department of Labor released model notices that
employers can use to inform their employees about the state
health insurance exchanges launching next year as part of the
Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare. Like many materials written by
government bureaucrats, the notices are long, wordy and full
of jargon. They're enough to make most business owners want to
crumple them up and put them in the back of a drawer.

But ignoring the model notices would be a bad idea. That's
because under the law, every employer is required to send out
those notices by Oct. 1, regardless of whether you have more than
50 full-timers and therefore must offer health insurance, or you have fewer than
50 and are facing no such mandate. That means you need to
start figuring out now what materials you should send along
with the notices to help your employees prepare for the
upcoming changes to their health insurance options.

"Even though small employers are not subject to many of these
requirements, their employees are still going to have a lot of
questions," says Amy Sheridan, an associate in the Boston office
of law firm Sullivan & Worcester and former programming chair
of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries
Benefits Council of New England. "For the small employers, I
would say get ahead of this as much as you can."

First, let's get some terminology out of the way. The state
health exchanges are now called "Health Insurance Marketplaces."
Anyone can shop at their state's marketplace, and some people may
be eligible for tax credits if they buy their insurance there,
particularly if their employers offer plans that are deemed
substandard under the law, or if participating in their company's
plan is going to cost the employee more than 9.5% of their
family's household income. All of that is explained in the
notices about the new marketplaces.

Here's how to approach handling the requirement based on three
possible scenarios businesses might face.

Scenario No. 1: You already offer insurance and will
continue to do so. If you offer a health plan that's
fully compliant with the new law, the existence of the health
marketplaces may not be all that relevant for your employees. But
you can still use the marketplace notices as an opportunity to
boost morale, says Michael Ward, president of Insight
Performance, a human-resources consulting firm in Dedham, Mass.

"There's a lot of worry around the law," Ward says. "If you offer
insurance at an acceptable level according to the guidelines, you
should play that up as a real employee benefit, and educate
people about what they have available to them."

If you have employees that you suspect fall above the 9.5%
threshold and therefore may be tempted to explore their choices
on the public marketplaces, Ward recommends counseling them
privately about their options. For example, if the company offers
a selection of plans, you might urge those employees to switch to
lower-cost options, he says.

Scenario No 2: You don't offer a health plan now but will
next year. Regardless of whether you're required to
offer health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, or you plan
to start offering it so you can attract high-quality talent, you
can use the marketplace notices as an opportunity to educate your
employees about the new benefit that the company will provide in
2014.

The learning curve will be a bit steeper in this scenario than
the previous one, so consider bringing in an outside consultant,
or perhaps a representative from your insurance provider, to
explain the ins and outs of their plan choices, Ward suggests.

Scenario No. 3: You don't offer a health plan and won't
in 2014. If you don't offer insurance now, and you don't
plan to, you can still consider the required marketplace notices
as an opportunity to support your employees. Brian Driscoll, a
founding partner of Ovation Benefits Group in Farmington, Conn.,
recommends bringing in an insurance agent or benefits expert to
help your employees navigate your state's marketplace and buy
insurance there.

Some state exchanges are training insurance agents and other
folks to go into companies and help educate employees on their
exchange choices. In Connecticut, the service is offered
free-of-charge to companies, because the consultants are paid by
the insurance carriers offering products on the exchange,
Driscoll says. "Even though you don't offer a plan, you can still
offer a service and help folks make the right selections,"
Driscoll says.

Regardless of what scenario you're facing, most experts agree
that come Oct. 1, you should be prepared with a comprehensive
educational package about the relevance of those state health
marketplaces to your company. "Spend time crafting your general
message and making it as clear and concise as possible," Driscoll
says. "I think that will be the challenge."